Irresistible to begin one of these annual playlists with a song declaring, “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” Those words surely resonated for me in 2005—I had just turned thirty, my love life was in perpetual flux and I yearned for something resembling actual adulthood (and not an apartment with five roommates. )
Just as I saw more movies in cinemas this year (including my first trip to the Toronto International Film Festival) than any previously, I likely listened to more new music as well. Among the three dozen favorites below, we have unusual cameos (Cindy and Kate from The B-52s on “Take My Time”! An opera singer on the Calexico/Iron and Wine collaboration!), triumphant returns-to-form (Depeche Mode, Erasure, Aimee Mann and New Order), and defining tracks such as Sufjan Stevens’ iconic ode to the Windy City, Fiona Apple’s Disney-meets-David Lynch title track from her troubled third album and The New Pornographers’ breathless, towering mini-epic—the centerpiece of an LP I nearly gave its own 100 Albums entry.
If you asked me what some of the big hits of 2005 were, I’d answer “Hollaback Girl”, “Gold Digger”, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and… that’s all I can name. But this mix is packed with songs that received copious play at the time on my just-purchased first iPod: Andrew Bird’s catchy, soaring, indecipherable wordplay; Metric’s Blondie-worthy disco-rock; My Morning Jacket’s incredible fusion of Lynyrd Skynyrd and XTC; Pernice Brothers’ blissful instrumental; Amy Rigby’s disarming meet-the-new-wife fable; glorious, meticulous power-pop from The Magic Numbers and Oranger; Art Brut perilously walking a fine line between stoopid and clever; Doves’ alternately spiky and swaying Motown pastiche; and the now mostly-forgotten Shivaree’s dreamy, undulating ballad, its unresolved melancholy and regret just hanging there, affecting and unshakable.
As anticipated and thrilling as Kate Bush’s return from exile was, Saint Etienne’s latest was for me an event—the London trio’s worst selling album (not even released domestically until the following year with a stoopid rearranged track listing), it was an instant classic with the effortlessly joyous “Stars Above Us” a buoyant anthem (not even a single in the UK!) now awaiting rediscovery.
2005: Nothing Can Touch Us
- The Mountain Goats, “This Year”
- Art Brut, “Formed A Band”
- Calexico/Iron and Wine, “He Lays In The Reins”
- Junior Senior, “Take My Time”
- The Decemberists, “The Sporting Life”
- Depeche Mode, “Precious”
- The New Pornographers, “The Bleeding Heart Show”
- Amy Rigby, “The Trouble With Jeanie”
- Bettye LaVette, “Joy”
- Doves, “Almost Forgot Myself”
- Metric, “Poster Of A Girl”
- Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago”
- Keren Ann, “Greatest You Can Find”
- Aimee Mann, “Video”
- Kate Bush, “A Coral Room”
- Roisin Murphy, “Through Time”
- Fiona Apple, “Extraordinary Machine”
- Mike Doughty, “I Hear The Bells”
- Erasure, “Here I Go Impossible Again”
- Goldfrapp, “Ride A White Horse”
- My Morning Jacket, “Off The Record”
- Pernice Brothers, “Discover A Lovelier You”
- Marianne Faithfull, “Crazy Love”
- Shivaree, “Mexican Boyfriend”
- Antony and the Johnsons, “Fistful of Love”
- Martha Wainwright, “When The Day Is Short”
- The Magic Numbers, “Love Me Like You”
- Madonna, “Hung Up”
- Andrew Bird, “Fake Palindromes”
- New Order, “Waiting For The Siren’s Call”
- Super Furry Animals, “Zoom!”
- Spoon, “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”
- Oranger, “Sukiyaki”
- Ivy, “Ocean City Girl”
- Saint Etienne, “Stars Above Us”
- Ben Folds, “Landed”
Haunted Jukebox 